Repackaging

Repackaging leaves the video itself untouched and changes what sits in front of it. You rewrite the title, remake the thumbnail, and let YouTube show the new version to people who scrolled past the old one.

Do it on a video whose retention held up while the click-through rate stayed flat, because that combination says the video was fine and the packaging was the problem. A video people clicked and then abandoned has the opposite diagnosis, and no thumbnail will fix it.

If you want to know which version won, change one thing at a time. YouTube's own test tool compares up to three titles or three thumbnails over a period of up to two weeks.